Eli Manning has become a master at making adjustments for Giants

Mario Manningham hauls in touchdown pass from Eli Manning in the NFC title game last January. Manningham signed with the 49ers as a free agent in the offseason and will face the Giants today.Chris Faytok/The Star-Ledger

The play was not in the Giants’ game plan for the NFC Championship round, at least not in the form that it was run. Nor had they practiced it the week before the game.

But without Eli Manning’s 17-yard touchdown pass to Mario Manningham at Candlestick Park last January, the Giants may never have made Super Bowl XLVI history.

“I drew it up on the sidelines,” offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride recalled proudly last week.

Then he trusted Manning to do the rest: Make the correct read, fire a perfect throw and convert a third-and-15 into a fourth-quarter lead in an elimination contest against the Niners that the Giants would go on to win in overtime.

It’s the kind of play that can win conference titles — or games like the Giants’ rematch today with the 49ers (4-1). And it’s likely one reason San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh, himself a former NFL quarterback, calls Manning a “magician.”

The 49ers know firsthand what can result from the quick, precise decision-making Manning has honed through his nine-year pro career. And each new season, Gilbride said, he can “take it further,” in terms of Manning’s ability to strike a defense with tailored plays — even when those adjustments are brainstormed on the bench between series.

“He can take advantage of it,” Gilbride said, “even though it’s something we had never done.”

The Manningham touchdown stands out in players’ memories, because it was a significant play in their Super Bowl run, and had never been worked on the way they ran it.

Adjustments are common in the Giants’ offense, built into plays to respond to looks the opponent is giving. This process is so smooth that even in time-sensitive, two-minute situations, Gilbride can radio in to Manning a way to individualize part of the play. But these are usually familiar changes that had been practiced in the days leading up to the game.

At least once per game, backup quarterback David Carr estimates, Gilbride will go outside the game plan. He may not even draw up the new play. He’ll simply describe it on the sideline, like when he suggested sending Manningham — now with the 49ers — on a post route instead of a designed 15-yard comeback on one of their base plays.

The 49ers defense, currently ranked second in the NFL, is a stingy outfit with players who use their “help” to avoid one-on-one matchups. The Giants were searching for openings to make a big play, and saw one in the way San Francisco’s safeties were playing the Giants’ 3x1 receiver sets.

One safety was hanging over receiver Hakeem Nicks on the single-receiver side, essentially double-teaming him. The safety on the other side had been dropping down on inside targets Jake Ballard and Victor Cruz. Manningham, the third receiver on their side, had a chance to be one-on-one.

So Gilbride asked Manningham to run a post route from his spot on the three-receiver side. If the 49ers again played this coverage, Manning could hit the post route over the safety’s head. It worked.

“It was the perfect read,” Cruz said. “And the perfect placement of the ball, where only Mario could get it.”

The synergy of the Giants’ passing game seems to have picked up where it left off after the Super Bowl XLVI run — which included an even more significant play by Manning, his back-side throw to a toe-tapping Manningham that set up the Super Bowl-winning touchdown.

The Giants average 309 yards in the air per game, third in the league and the one sure thing alongside the unreliable run game. Carr says they also average just one mental error per week, if that — one of the reasons he says the passing game is farther along at this point in the season than any of his other three seasons with the team. That’s despite injuries at the receiver position, notably Nicks, who hopes to return today after missing three games.

“It just looks cleaner,” Carr said. “Whereas last year we got better (at making adjustments) toward the end of the year, I feel like we are kind of right where we left off. There’s not a span of a month or two where it is kind of like, ‘All right, we’ll figure this out eventually.’ ”

One telling statistic is how quickly Manning is getting the ball out. In last week’s victory against the Browns, he averaged less than 2.5 seconds from snap to delivery, by an unofficial measurement. In the loss to the Eagles, he averaged less than 2.6 seconds.
That’s fast, considering pass-rushers often say they have 3 seconds to get to the quarterback. Manning has only been sacked four times this season, second-fewest in the NFL. He’s also spent extra time with his targets, emphasizing hot reads and hand signals for route adjustments and when he has to get the ball out rapidly.

“I know when I come out of my breaks, I’ve got to be ready because the ball will be right there,” said tight end Martellus Bennett, who spent four seasons in Dallas before signing with the Giants this spring. “It was something to get used to at first, but being used to it now, I know as soon as I get out of my break to get my head around and expect the ball to be over there.”

It was against the 49ers, too, that Manning suffered a beating: He was sacked six times and hit at least 12 in the NFC Championship Game by a talented front seven.

The antidote? “Just being decisive and making smart decisions,” Manning said.

At one point in Manning’s career, his ability to do just that was a question mark. Now it’s one of his greatest assets. Like on that Manningham touchdown.

“He can understand the whole concept. If it wasn’t that specific coverage on that, he’d know what to do and where to go,” Gilbride said. “But he knows the offense so well that if I adjust something or adapt something, he knows exactly why I did it. And he can adjust to it and can take advantage of it.”

He added: “We’ve been doing it for a couple years, but he just gets a little bit better every year.”